TAMPA – Some Yankees feel today will be just another spring-training game. Tony Clark is not one of them.

Clark, a member of the Red Sox in 2002, expects more than your average Grapefruit League yawner when the Yankees face Boston for the first time since Game 7 of the ALCS. The Yankees should expect plenty of boos, catcalls and insults from the moment they step off the team bus at City of Palms Park.

“I remember my very first game, Pedro was on the hill and there was an electricity in the air,” said Clark, who is making the trip today. “There tends to be a different smell in the air.”

Owners George Steinbrenner and John Henry have sparred in the newspapers this spring. Alex Rodriguez will be making the two-hours-plus bus ride to Fort Myers, as will Mariano Rivera. The game will be televised in New York.

There is sure to be interest among Red Sox fans, whose team reloaded after being dispatched and devastated by Aaron Boone’s homer last October.

Most tenured Yankees downplayed today’s event. Joe Torre said, “I don’t think all the fans who were there at Game 7 are going to be there [today].”

Jason Giambi, who will not be traveling, said, “I think it’s just spring training. I don’t think it’s the same.

“Of course, you want to play well and they’ve got a great ballclub. It’ll be getting the juices [flowing] again.”

Righty Jose Contreras opposes Boston righty Bronson Arroyo, not exactly a marquee matchup. Contreras needs to show his lower back is healthy, not to stick it to the team he spurned before the 2003 season.

Giambi said there’s attention and interest “anytime you see the Red Sox and the Yankees match up, whether it be a stickball game or a baseball game.”

Derek Jeter, the conscience of the Yankees, argued that it’s too early in the spring to get riled up. Jeter, the team’s emotional barometer, will wait until the 19 regular-season clashes begin April 16.

“It’s completely different,” Jeter said. “It doesn’t even compare.”

The major event will be A-Rod’s arrival into enemy territory. Who can forget he almost was playing for the Red Sox, except Boston’s ownership showed frugality at the wrong time? Fans undoubtedly will harass and boo the new Yankees third baseman. The only question is how loud 6,990 fans can get.

“I can’t act like I know what this rivalry is all about, because I haven’t lived it, haven’t played it,” Rodriguez said.

There was an 11th-hour move to take Rivera, who normally eschews all road games. All the names of the players who travel are circled with a black Sharpie and posted on a message board in the clubhouse. Rivera’s was circled in pen with Stottlemyre’s initials on it.

Rivera initially thought it was a prank. Jeter half-jokingly said, “That might be [his] first trip in the last six years.”

Reporters asked Rivera if he even had road grays hung up in his locker. He said he’d be burning them after the game.

Interestingly, he noted, “We have to win tomorrow.”

Sure, it won’t be the same. But for a few hours, it will be Yankees-Red Sox.

“It’s gonna be a pretty good prelude to what’s hopefully gonna be a good year,” A-Rod said.

Torre said, “If we win tomorrow, I’ll say how important it was. Hold that back just in case.”